Coronavirus: India's indigenous tribes find Covid-19 remedies in forests

Surupa, India - Health experts say the nature-based lifestyles of many indigenous communities are helping protect them.

A few weeks ago, Mukteshwar Kalo, a member of the Kondh tribe in eastern India, suddenly came down with a fever, cough and aches.

Nearly anywhere else, these symptoms would be enough to raise fears of Covid-19, but 58-year-old Kalo, who lives in Surupa village in the state of Odisha, was not worried.

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His wife treated him with remedies made from plants in a nearby forest: a drink with the leaves of the night-flowering gangasiuli jasmine to get rid of his fever and pains and a solution of extract of patragaja, or air plant, for his cough.

"The leaves, roots and other resources collected from our forests cured me in less than a week," said Kalo.

As India continues to battle the Covid-19 pandemic, health experts and environmentalists say the climate-resilient, nature-based lifestyles of many indigenous communities are helping protect them from the virus and its economic impact.

The same practices that keep the villagers' climate-heating emissions low and provide them with food also prevent them from catching and spreading the virus, said Y. Giri Rao, executive director of Vasundhara, an Odisha-based conservation nonprofit.

Preserving forests, protecting wildlife and managing natural resources wisely help keep indigenous people healthy, he said.

"The tribes in the region have been conserving their native biodiversity for generations through their community-led practices," Rao said.

"This is paying off during these tough times of global pandemic, in terms of food, medicinal and livelihood security."

With more than 9 million reported coronavirus cases, according to health ministry data, India is the second-worst affected country behind the United States.

Odisha state alone has had more than 320,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

But Bhimsen Kisan, head of the local government body for Surupa and a dozen other villages, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation there had been no known cases in any of those villages.

If local people do get sick, their symptoms are mild and do not last more than a few days, so there has been no need for anyone to get tested for the virus, he said.

Dr. Debananda Sahoo, assistant professor of general medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar, said the natural diets of many indigenous villagers strengthen their immune systems, key to keeping the virus at bay.

Wild, organic fruits and vegetables have high levels of vitamin C and vitamin E, Sahoo noted.

"Wide varieties of tubers, wild fruits, leaves, roots (and) mushrooms gathered from the forests and regularly consumed by the indigenous communities are rich in nutrients and antioxidants," he said.

"Most importantly, they are free from chemical fertilisers and pesticides, thus very pure and effective."

ANTISEPTIC SOLUTION

Conserving natural resources also makes indigenous communities economically self-sufficient, said Ipsita Behera of Banaja Banijya Sangha, a women's collective trading in forest products, like tamarind and chia seeds, in and around Surupa.

In many parts of Odisha, Village Forest Protection Committees decide which resources can be collected and where in the forest, allowing other areas to rejuvenate, she said.

Villagers gather plants and fruits according to those limits, which prevents over-exploitation, she noted.

And cutting trees for wood is forbidden, with communities getting all their fuel from dry leaves and branches on the forest floor.

"We take care of the forests and forests look after us - what is there to worry about (with) Covid?" he asked.